What can I eat while breast feeding so my baby will not get tummy cramps?

Ioana - Cleopatra - posted on 07/15/2010
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Hello everyne!3 months ago I had my second child and, as I bottle-fed my first born and now she has lots of alergies (13 groups of foods) I decided to breastfeed my baby boy. It seems to me that everything I eat apart from breadand butter gives him a watery stool and very bad tummy cramps. Even when he's asleep he keeps on lifting his knees and so on. Therefore now I'm at the end of my rope, I don't know what or how to eat anymore to make him feel better. PLEASE HELP, I am open to any suggestion: a title of dish or a sandwich filling, anything that you tryed and your baby was fine. Should I mention that throut the whole pregnancy I kept vomiting my food? Is this a sign that my baby has lots of allergies too?

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Angela - posted on 07/17/2010

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Oh, I completely forgot to add that I agree that watery stool is normal in breastfed babies. My husband asks on a daily basis if our baby has diarrea, and this is number 3, all of them breasfed! Some people never learn. :o)

With my first two kids I ate a bland diet, but all through my 3rd pregnancy I was craving spicy food. Everything I cooked was served with mustard sauce, sweet and sour sauce, curry sauce. We had curry at least once a week which is hard to do in Argentina, they´re not big curry eaters! I had my family send over some curry sauces from home. And now, breastfeeding my 3rd I don´t worry about what I eat, continue to eat all spicy food that I like. There are only 2 things I have to avoid and they are medialunas, the sweet croissants that Buenos Aires is famous for because they have something called agua de azahar in them which gives me indigestion and leaves the baby in terrible pain for 2 days, and red wine for the same reasons. Three months is normally a turning point for baby, though, their colics seem to get a lot better from there on. Hopefully this will happen with your little one as well.

Regarding the suggestion of lactose-free dairy foods: you, as a human, have the HIGHEST percentage of lactose in your milk of any mammal. Your baby is not lactose-intolerant in the slightest.

Now, a foremilk-hindmilk imbalance can give symptoms that are similar to lactose intolerance and this is because the baby receives too much lactose from too much foremilk in too short of a time for his body to process it.

Green stools and gassiness are signs of a foremilk-hindmilk imbalance.

A way to rectify this is by block feeding. You would nurse your baby on one breast only until it is sufficiently empty. The goal is to regulate your supply and help your baby get as much of the fatty hindmilk as possible. Some mothers nurse their babies in two hour increments, some up to eight hours (meaning, if your baby wants to nurse again prior to two hours being over, you would put baby back on the same breast again). After that block of time is up, baby would nurse on the other breast for the next block.

Also try cutting out dairy. You can substitute your milk with lactose-free milk. Some babies are sensitive to lactose that is in the dairy. Do a bland lactose-free diet, then slowly add in foods. Good luck!

The watery stool comes with breast feeding, that isn't really from your diet, it gets better with age. It's easier to say what to avoid, avoid all seasoning except for salt or sea salt. Black pepper (any other type of "hot" spice also), garlic, onion powder and onions themselves. Don't eat cabbage, broccoli, or anything cooked with something that's on the don't eat list. Pretty much you have to eat bland foods until your child is old enough to stomach them, that usually comes around at 6 months old. We always cook super bland for the first six months and have happy go lucky babies as a result. Be sure to read the ingredients on everything you eat before you eat it. Things like lunch meat, boxed foods ect, will have things like garlic and onion powder in them, it will upset your baby's tummy. We always go super natural and bland in the early bf days. Don't eat too much of any one food item, this can give your child a food allergy, especially if you ate excessive amounts of that food when pregnant. Your vomiting during pregnancy doesn't mean your child has food allergies, it just means your baby was putting more pressure on your stomach then you body could handle.